


I Sold My Soul to the USO

by kyburg



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:32:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyburg/pseuds/kyburg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back in the day, an old friend of mine proposed a fanzine that would center around the events of 'Shock Theater' and 'The Leap Back' - in as much as she proposed an entire book of stories about what would happen if Al hadn't switched back to being the hologram, and continued to do the leaps instead of Sam.</p><p>This story is from an idea I had for that project, that sadly didn't come to fruition - and neither did that fanzine, even sadder.  I hope you like it.</p><p>'Leaping through time, instead of Sam - Al finds himself in a troop of USO performers in Europe, right before the end of WWII.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Sold My Soul to the USO

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kymericl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kymericl/gifts).



"Tony! Toooooooony - GET UP! GET UP NOW YOU SLUG - "

Oh Shelby, your dulcet tones never fail to amaze. Pulling the very Army-issue wool blanket down to my nose, I meet the eyes of my partner in crime as she stares at me with a cup of hot coffee in one hand. "Come on, truck is leaving in an hour and there's still some hot water if you want to wash up."

Wash up? Oh yes I do - very much, I do indeed. When you're riding around in the back of any kind of transport you can grab, you can acquire the most amazing...things...in your travels. Why would I be doing such a thing, you ask? Lemme tellya. I don't think I really had a clue what kind of trouble I could get into when I started doing the leaps instead of Sam, but being a piano player for a girl's group in the USO really wasn't the first thing that came to mind.

It's been a blast. But after two weeks here? No closer to either leaping home - or finishing whatever it is God/Time/Whatever needs me to do here. Taking the coffee from Shelby, I sit up and put my feet on dirty concrete floor as she walks away. And friend? What a view. Shelby is the kind of blonde they're going to write songs about someday, all legs and long arms - eyes like a stormy sky - all the right curves in all the right places? That kind of blonde. She's the tallest one of the four of us, and knows it - which makes her a bit shy to stand next to us if she can sit. Us. Us? Oh yeah, the rest of us - listen carefully, you can hear Sandy warming up in the bathroom.

Sandy - hell if I know that's her real name, I doubt it - is our token redhead. Pretty sweet voice, more freckles than anything else, brown eyes like coffee caramels with a snub nose to set them off. You'd think she was the firey one, but that's Shelby - Sandy? Sandy is an absolute horse - never stops working until everyone else is dead on their pegs and can go no further. She eats, sleeps and dreams music - singing constantly, humming if she can't find the words. She knows it. No, up to anything written by April, 1945 - Sandy knows it. Hum a few bars and it's all over. She's also the one with pitch so good she can keep us sounding amazing without the help of anything but Tony, his piano and maybe the harmonica on occasion. (Thankfully, the piano hasn't been available for some time. The harmonica? Faking it like mad.)

Then there's Sue. Ah me, Sue is easily my favorite - but don't tell anyone. She's as wide as she is tall, which means she's isn't at all - as roly-poly as a sweet bun, all bundled up. Round face with huge round black eyes with thick black lashes she has no trouble batting at folks to get her way. She keeps her hair pretty short - it's so curly, it would only be manageable as ringlets if she let it grow out, black as a raven's wing. I've never seen her angry - never. I can't imagine what it would take, either. Sue is the first one with a hug, a query or a bit of cheer. And look, there she is right now - with a tray that looks like it has food on it.

Well, it's likely to be toast, at least. Asking for eggs right now? Probably won't happen either.

Y'see, I've been leaped into what Sam and I can best figure out to be the middle of Europe, right after - and I mean, RIGHT after - the Normandie invasion. Not before, not during - no. After, like why would you send me here after. It's coming on fall soon, I've been here for weeks and there's no end to this leap in sight.

Not that I'm complaining.

But I'd like at least a shot at going home.

Seeing that I'm awake and under my own power, Shelby strides off to finish getting herself ready to leave - as I recall, we're breaking camp with this unit we've been with the last couple of days and striking off towards another unit, nearer the front. It's been France cum Brussels, I think - hard to tell. Even Ziggy is coming up blank - seems the databases weren't loaded with stuff this far back. The Project was geared to send Sam off into the great unknown - me?

I'm a bit older. And the records aren't going that far back. Right now, Ziggy says they're working off the journals and letters written home by some of the soliders in this unit. And they weren't really designed to tell me why I would be here to fix something gone wrong with one of my girls...or me...they were really more interested in other things, you might imagine. It's what we got, and it's pretty thin soup.

Sue offers me the tray, eyes a-twinkle and smiling, dimples dimpling and I just melt. She's just so damn cute. "Sorry it's only toast with a little jam, Tony."

"That's okay, honey." I know better than to wait around for an audience - I quickly gulp down my breakfast, such as it is and get myself ready to hop whatever it is we're taking East today.

About the time I finish snapping the last buckle on a very travel-weary valise, I hear the door to the imaging chamber open and Sam walks through it, coding as he goes.

He's also talking to himself again, I notice. With his mouth full.

"Sam...what the hell is that thing?"

I don't think I can remember a time when Dr. Sam Beckett wasn't surrounded by as many glowing screens as he had space to fit them within reach. Yes, he uses a comlink - but he keeps opening windows in mid-air in addition to it, checking this, noting that and they follow him around like a cloud of glowing pages everywhere he goes.

I might have been the Project's Observer - Sam? Sam was its Creator, its Genesis...its very heart and soul. Brilliant doesn't begin to describe the mind between those two ears, and if there was less than fifty things going on at once, he gets bored. He plays chess on one of those windows with Beeks - all the time. Ziggy? Ziggy gets the Mah Jong and I don't mean the kind where they turn it into flower lotto.

That's in addition to the constant, constant monitoring of the Leap I'm on - and the plans he's making to get me home again.

He doesn't sleep much, either. And often - he eats on the run.

Like now. When I'm getting a cup of weak campfire coffee and two slices of dry toast - and it's the first food I've seen in more than ten hours. I mentioned WWII Europe? They haven't even started the famines in Russia yet. Moving on.

"Swear to God, Sam - that a sandwich? Or did you cut a loaf of French bread in half and stuff an entire pig in there?"

"Wha-? Oh this? This - good morning, by the way - I think it's morning there - is that your breakfast? That's your breakfast - oh. Oh, Al. You're kidding me. Um - " He's got the good grace to look ashamed, I'll give him that. "This thing?" And then he tries to stuff it behind his back, the doofus. Damn thing's too big. And his mouth is full, too. Absolutely delicious and I'm enjoying this to the hilt. I just put the empty dishes to the side, fold my arms and wait for the next move.

"It's the middle of the night here, Al. And this? This? It's shredded SPAM! Spam...with sour cream! Yeah - "

"Sam - "

" - and leftover chow mein. Yesterday's chow mein, Al."

"Sam, it's okay - "

"The bread isn't all that good either, I think it's gotten soaked in something - "

"SAM!"

"Apricot jam." He finally finishes chewing that huge bite and swallows. "Sour cream and apricot jam, Al." And he turns around and puts the sandwich down...which means, it disappears. "There. Better?"

I just stare at him for a moment. "You owe me one of those when I get home, asshole."

A new window pops up, right near his left temple. "I owe Al a reuben sandwich from Ruby's. Another one." So noted, the window flashes briefly as the data is saved, then blips out of sight. "I'm sorry, Al."

"Not your fault, kid. Whatcha got today?"

"Get ready, the truck leaves inside the hour - anyway - I think I've got a clue. Maybe even a plan."

"Custer had a plan - "

"Buckminster Fuller did too - this is a good plan. We've got some better intel. You were right - it's one of the girls."

"Really? And lemme guess - Shelby."

"Bingo, Bingo." Moving some of the screens around, Sam begins to tap some of them, scrolling down some of the others. "You remember she's always worn dark clothing, black if she can get away with it - "

"Navy most of the time, yeah. Sets off that blonde hair like mwrow - "

"Down, boy. Well, you've also noted that gold star on the lapel too, right?"

Yeah, I had - and also her habit of lighting candles inside of every church we'd been in - which, when you were moving with the troops, happened often. They were often the only buildings left standing in some places. "She lost someone, but she isn't chatty about it."

"Her brother - her twin brother."

"Really? She never said - "

"Well, I just dug up something that clinched it - turns out this brother isn't dead, well - not yet anyway but you have to hurry - there's a field hospital just down the way and over a bit that you guys are going to go right past on your way to your next stop that has a John Doe patient - "

"He's alive - oh, wait a sec - you said yet."

"Right. Right now, he's an unknown patient - the records I found say he's mute, shell-shocked and will essentially waste away and die within a few weeks. He matches the descriptions I've been able to get from Shelby's teenage diaries - "

"Sam! Her what?"

"Her grandchildren thought they were historical records, considering when she wrote in them - so they ended up donated. It was after she died, don't worry - she'll never know."

"That's not helping."

"Sorry." Watching Sam's eyes light up as they darted from window to window, I felt hope rise. Maybe this time - maybe now? Now, we'd get somewhere.

I'm getting so tired of Army rations, you have no idea. And sooner or later, a piano is going to appear and I'm going to out myself as a complete non-starter. Gotta wrap this up. Gotta Leap.

"Where are you getting your intel?" Asking the question, it made Sam stop to meet my eyes and my heart sank. A teenage girl's diary is one thing - what record had Sam unearthed to get the match?

His mouth got tight, lips thinned out and the eyes narrowed. "You're going to meet up with a unit that just liberated a German POW camp."

Well, then. "I gotta go. Truck's leaving in less than an hour."

###

In some other life, that truck might have passed for an E-ticket ride at Disneyland - but today, I owe a whole new set of bruises from being tossed around inside the bed like a bad game of Yahtzee. Watching Sam stand there patiently, comlink in hand, windows aflutter around him as the skies grew dark after the sun set that day, I knew I was waiting for him to signal me when we got close. Sandy had us running our setlist for the next show, trying out new variations on this and that - heck, we'd sung all of our repetoire nearly to death by then. But it kept us busy, focused on the task at hand.

I just kept waiting for Sam's face to change. He kept looking at those twenty-something screens, eyes flickering back and forth between them all.

"Are we there yet?" Shelby has had enough, folks. Watch out. Tony, the poor schmuck who I leaped into? He's known Shelby for about a year or so - and if there's any of him still here while I am? That tone she's using says 'Incoming!'

"Aren't those lights ahead?" Sue's squinting ahead while Shelby folds her arms and glowers and Sandy taps out some rhythm she's trying out on one knee. Me, I'm just trying to keep my seat.

"Whoa, Al - stop the truck! Now!"

Stop the truck, he says. Okay, stop the truck - standing up, I manage a pretty good imitation of Buster Keaton before I fall out of the truck.

"Shoot, Tony! Man overboard!" Aw, Sue. You're my hero.

###

Those had been the lights of the unit we were intending to meet up with - but we found ourselves drawn to another set of lights just off the eleven from them. If they hadn't stopped to pick my dumb butt off the side of the road where I'd taken a dirt nap, they would never have noticed. They were closer, too. And wonder of wonders, the radio operator made contact with someone there who said they had something better than canned beans for dinner.

Sold.

A hospital. And I swear on anything you consider holy, I hope I never see anything like it again. They had food because they had patients who needed it. They had warm blankets and extra clothing because some of those guys had had neither. But as far as medical technology went? This wasn't your grand-dad's MASH unit - and I watched Sam's face pale, growing tight and grim. At least one of those dancing windows had a list of names - I'm sure of it. Most of these guys weren't going home from here.

"Sam, isn't there anything - "

"You don't even have a bottle of antibiotics - shoot, even a bar of soap. Nothing, Al. Not your fault."

But over there, in the corner? There are two blond heads resting close together, two faces near one another like matching bookends - but only one of them is crying. The other? The eyes remain fixed ahead, unseeing. "Sam, what happens now?"

"They go home. You all go home, actually. His name is Lawrence, by the way - Larry - and he makes a pretty good recovery back in the States, once they get there. But it takes a while." Continuing to tap at windows, he begins to read off one of them. "He manages to go to school on the GI Bill and becomes...a pharmacist. Huh. Shelby does okay, too - you already figured out she has some kids, some grandkids and all that...but she also ends up being the person who keeps everyone from the USO shows in touch with one another after the war, organizing all the reunions and tours later. Sandy goes back to school gets her teaching credential...and brings a bunch of musicians along, and get this - she enters the Peace Corps in the sixties and does the same thing all over the world. Sue?"

"Sue marries Tony, they go off and have a wonderful life - "

"You knew?"

"I guessed."

One of the windows started to flash. "Oh, crap. Sorry, Al -"

"Time to go? Aw, come on Sam - you've had weeks to get ready - don't tell me you don't - "

And just like that, folks? You're outta there.

 

###

When my vision cleared, the first thing I saw was Sam. Now, this is not your happy-go-lucky, oh-gee-isn't-this-GREAT Sam. No, this Sam was having one of the worst days of his life. Which is to say, he wanted to laugh so hard it hurt - but he didn't dare. Because I'd kill him.

So he was standing there, screens glowing all around him, one hand poised above one of them - eyebrows drawn together so tight they looked like caterpillars trying to mate, his eyes black slits staring down his nose...at me.

Uh. Oh.

"What is it, Cornflower? Aren't you ready to take the plunge?"

That's when the smell hit me. Patchouli, burnt. Weed, smoked. Bodies, unwashed. L'eau de crashpad. I'm back in the late sixties, early seventies again. I can only be sure if I know the Beatles are still together or not.

*Brrr* Naked? I look down, into my reflection in muddy water, up to my knees. I'm a girl - a *pretty* girl, but still - blond, eyes so blue they're the only color I see in my reflection and if I'm twenty, I'm lucky. Looking up, I'm staring into the face of someone about the same age, male, hairy to the point of having a pelt instead of a face - and shirtless.

Looking around, there's a lot of people - all about the same age, both genders, standing in a circle around me, knee-deep in some pretty churned up lake water. All of them muddy-wet...and shirtless. Yes, everyone.

"Come on, we're waiting on you - " Oh man. No clothes, either. At. All.

I hear the sloshing behind me, just before another one of the girls gives me a big shove and I go under. "Purification! Now, kiss me!"

Kiss me. Kiss ME?

Oh, there's not much I won't do for Sam. Something tells me I'm going to find out just how far that goes. Coming up spitting, my hands are taken up by another fella with a smile on his face, pond scum in his beard and clear intent on his mind. "Welcome to the tribe, baby. Wanna fuck?"

"Oh, SHIT."

 

-30-

**Author's Note:**

> I've found the original manuscript!
> 
> I'll be giving it the once over and uploading what I have - maybe even finishing it - soon!


End file.
